III
Nothing, perhaps, could better illustrate the contradictory complexity of environmental influences than the state of musical culture in eighteenth-century Philadelphia. Compared with the Quaker attitude toward music, that of the Puritans was almost indecently liberal. Yet Philadelphia was beyond doubt musically the most cultured city in eighteenth-century America. The cause is not apparent, but we have ample evidence of the fact. As in the case of other American cities, it is impossible to say when public concerts started in Philadelphia. The first mention of concerts there, so far discovered, is in Gottlieb Mittelberger's Reise nach Pennsylvanien im Jahre 1750. But these, the author states, were private concerts 'auf dem Spinnet oder Klavicymbel.' No announcements of public concerts appear in the Philadelphia newspapers until 1757, when the 'Pennsylvania Gazette' announces one under the direction of Mr. John Palma. The same gentleman gave another concert a few months later, as we find from the ledger of George Washington, who bought tickets for it. No more public concerts appear before 1764 and, indeed, they seem to have been far from common until after the war. During the last years of the century the musical life of Philadelphia was extremely rich, both as to public concerts and otherwise.
We know nothing about the concert of 1764 except that it was under the direction of James Bremner.[31] Another concert under the same direction was given in the following year. It was announced as a 'Performance of Solemn Music,' the 'vocal parts chiefly by young Gentlemen educated in this Seminary' (College of Philadelphia), and accompanied by the organ. It was a very fine concert, and the fact that it was highly successful is eloquent of the state of musical culture in Philadelphia at that time. Besides a chorus and airs set to scriptural texts the program included a Stamitz overture, the Sixth Concerto of Geminiani, an overture by the Earl of Kelly, Martini's Second Overture, the overture to Arne's 'Artaxerxes,' a sonata on the harpsichord, and a solo on the violin. Two orations were added for good measure. A series of subscription concerts was inaugurated on Thursday, January 19, 1764, and continued every Thursday until May 24 following. Apparently these also were under the direction of James Bremner and there is prima facie evidence that Francis Hopkinson was connected with them in some capacity. A second series was advertised to begin on Thursday, November 8, 1764, and to be continued until March 14 following. The programs of these concerts were not printed in the newspapers, as admission was confined to subscribers, and it seems to have been customary to print programs for distribution with the tickets—an eminently sane and praiseworthy custom which fortunately still survives in America.
A concert given in 1764 by Stephen Forrage for his own benefit and that of other 'assistant performers at the Subscription Concert,' may be mentioned, were it only for the fact that Mr. Forrage appeared as soloist on Benjamin Franklin's 'famous Armonica, or Musical Glasses, so much admired for their great Sweetness and Delicacy of its tone.' We trust he had more respect for the musical proprieties than he evidently entertained for the grammatical ones. After 1765 no concerts appear until November, 1769, when Giovanni Gualdo gave a 'Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musick ... directed by Mr. Gualdo, after the Italian method'—whatever that may have been. Most of the program consisted of compositions by Mr. Gualdo, and there were two overtures by the Earl of Kelly.[32] In the same month a subscription series was started—'The Vocal Music by Messieurs Handel, Arne, Giardini, Jackson, Stanley, and others. The instrumental Music by Messieurs Geminiani, Barbella, Campioni, Zanetti, Pellegrino, Abel, Bach, Gualdo, the Earl of Kelly and others.' Gualdo gave two benefit concerts in 1770 and one in 1771. He died soon after. In the latter year also Mr. John McLean, instructor on the German flute, gave a concert 'performed by a full Band of Music, with Trumpets, Kettle Drum, and every instrument that can be introduced with Propriety,' and 'interspersed with the most pleasing and select Pieces, composed by approved authors.' A concert of popular songs by a Mr. Smith in 1772 was apparently the only public attempt to break the musical monotony of Philadelphia until Signior Sodi, 'first dancing master of the opera in Paris and London,' gave a grand affair at which a Mr. Vidal, 'musician of the Chambers of the King of Portugal,' played 'on divers instruments of music,' while Signior Sodi, Miss Sodi, and Mr. Hullett (of New York) danced minuets, a louvre, a 'new Philadelphia cotillion,' a rigadoon, an allemande, a jigg, and a hompipe. In the same year 'Mr. Victor, musician to her late Royal Highness the Princess of Wales and Organist of St. George's, London,' advertised a performance on 'his new musical instruments ... the one he calls tromba doppio con tympana, on which he plays the first and second trumpet and a pair of annexed kettle drums with the feet, all at once; the other is called cymbaline d'amour, which resembles the musical glasses played by harpsichord keys, never subject to come out of tune, both of his own invention.'
From all of which appears that for a short time before the war musical life in Philadelphia degenerated sadly. Presumably the people were too much interested in the big and burning issues of the day to lend substantial support to concert givers. Likewise during the war they were too much occupied with more vital and disturbing affairs. While Lord Howe's army occupied Philadelphia there were, according to Capt. Johann Heinrich of the Hessian Jäger Corps, 'assemblies, concerts, comedies, clubs, and the like,' but it would hardly be patriotic to consider these activities of the enemy. Apart from them there were no public performances during the war until, on December 11, 1781, Lucerne, the French minister, gave an 'elegant concert' in honor of Generals Washington and Greene 'and a very polite circle of gentlemen and ladies,' at which was performed Francis Hopkinson's patriotic 'oratorial entertainment "Temple of Minerva".'
After the war, however, the musical life of Philadelphia awoke with a bound. The revival was inaugurated by a fortnightly series of city concerts in 1783 under the leadership of John Bentley. A second series under the same leadership followed in 1784. Bentley promised for his second season 'a more elegant and perfect entertainment than it was possible (from the peculiar circumstances of the time) to procure during the last winter,' and he felt encouraged in his enterprise by 'the rising taste for music, and its improved state in Philadelphia.' Bentley discontinued his concerts in 1785-86 and apparently that season was barren of such entertainments. In 1786, however, there came the advent of Alexander Reinagle. Together with Henri Capron, William Brown, and Alexander Juhan he started in that year a series of twelve fortnightly concerts, the programs of which were all announced in the newspapers. Certainly there could have been no lack of musical culture among the Philadelphians when they supported an extended series of such concerts as were given by Reinagle et al. The concerts were continued in the winter of 1787-88 and then apparently discontinued until 1792, when they were revived by Messrs. Reinagle and Capron in conjunction with John Christopher Moller. In these the high standard of the preceding concerts was well maintained.
Meanwhile a Mr. Duplessis, who kept an English school for young gentlemen, started a series of fourteen concerts on his own account in 1786, but we do not know how many he succeeded in giving. In the same year an amateur subscription series was started, apparently under the auspices of a society called the 'Musical Club,' and was continued every season until 1790-91. Then, it seems, there was a consolidation of amateurs and professionals in 1794, with Reinagle as the guiding spirit. They gave a season of six subscription concerts with programs devoted largely to Haydn, Pleyel, and Handel. No further subscription series are discoverable before the end of the century, with the exception of those given by Mrs. Grattan, who, in 1797, announced eight subscription concerts. As she referred to these as 'the second Ladies Concert' the inference is that she had already given a series in 1796. Mrs. Grattan confined her activities chiefly to chamber and vocal music, but as we find Handel, Haydn, Pleyel, Paesiello, Viotti, and Sacchini figuring on her programs, it is evident that the public taste had not degenerated. She gave another season in 1797-98, after which she left Philadelphia for Charleston, appearing later in New York. In addition to regular subscription concerts there were, after the Revolution, an increasing number of affairs given for private profit, for charity, and for other purposes. Especially noteworthy are the activities of Andrew Adgate, who was a real pioneer of artistic choral music in Philadelphia. In 1784 Adgate founded by subscription 'The Institution for the Encouragement of Church Music,' which became known in 1785 as the Uranian Society and in 1787 as the Uranian Academy of Philadelphia.
In the preceding chapter we mentioned the Grand Concert given on May 4, 1786, with a chorus of 230 and an orchestra of 50, as well as the concert of April 12, 1787. Both were given under the auspices of the Uranian Society, with Adgate as conductor. It is worthy of note that the syllabus of the second concert was accompanied by remarks on the pieces to be performed—probably the first example of annotated programs in America. The Uranian Academy was actually opened in 1787 and its second annual concert was held in 1788. How long afterward it survived we cannot say, as no further references to it are found in the newspapers. According to Scharf and Westcott's 'History of Philadelphia,' however, it was active until after 1800.
After 1788 the sacred choral concerts—or 'oratorios,' as they were called—gradually approximated the style of the purely secular vocal and instrumental concerts, and after 1790 they seem to have disappeared altogether.
The arrival in 1790 of the French company of which we have already spoken introduced a strikingly novel note into the concert life of Philadelphia. In contrast to the style of thing done by Bremner, Hopkinson, Reinagle, and other men of severe taste their programs do not strike us too favorably. Indeed, their concerts marked the beginning of a curious corruption in the public taste and of a tendency toward indiscriminate program-making which has not yet completely disappeared from our midst. From this time until the end of the century hardly a program appears that does not contain a theatrical composition of Monsigny, Paesiello, Sacchini, Cimarosa, Cherubini, or some other operatic writer of this period, and, as we draw nearer to the nineteenth century, the more miscellaneous become the programs. During those years the concert-life of Philadelphia was dominated largely by French musicians, most of whom, it would appear, were men who had received the best European training. We notice, for instance, that Joseph César was 'a pupil of the celebrated Signor Viotti and first violin of the theatre in Cape François,' and that Victor Pelissier was 'first French horn in the theatre in Cape François.' Perhaps the fact that so many of the French musicians were virtuosi inspired the making of programs devoted to medleys, ariettes, 'favourite sonatas,' and concertos for every instrument that could possibly be employed solo. Yet even such a thorough artist as Alexander Reinagle descended—perforce, we presume—to the inclusion in his programs of such vocal gems as 'Kiss me now or never,' 'Poor Tom Bowling,' 'My Poll and my partner Joe,' 'A Smile from the girl of my heart,' and so forth. Mr. and Mrs. Hodgkinson, Mrs. Pownall, Miss Broadhurst and others gave concerts with programs equally miscellaneous, and it must be admitted that all this points to a distinct musical retrogression in Philadelphia during the last decade of the eighteenth century.
There remain to be mentioned the summer concerts given in public gardens which became very popular toward the beginning of the nineteenth century. They were inaugurated, it would seem, by a Mr. Vincent M. Pelosi, proprietor of the Pennsylvania Coffee House, who proposed for the summer season of 1786 'to open a Concert of Harmonial Music,' to be continued weekly from the first Thursday of June to the last Thursday of September. His example was followed in 1789 by Messrs. George and Robert Gray, proprietors of 'Gray's Gardens,' who gave weekly concerts from May to October, and continued that feature until about 1793. As their programs included compositions of Haydn, Stamitz, Martini, and Abel, it may be seen that they adhered to the prevailing standard. George Esterley started concerts at his 'Vauxhall Harrowgate' in 1789, engaging as soloist 'a lady from Europe who has performed in all the operas in the theatres Royal of Dublin and Edinburgh.' The announcement has a very modern ring. As far as we know Esterley continued his enterprise at least until 1796, presenting somewhat the same programs as Messrs. Gray. In 1797 Messrs. Bates and Darley opened Bush Hill or Pennsylvania Tea Gardens with vocal and instrumental music as a feature, but were obliged to dissolve partnership in the same year. John Mearns, proprietor of the Centre House Tavern and Gardens, announced in 1799 that he would add 'to the entertainment his house afforded ... at a very great expense ... a grand organ of the first power and tone, which [would] be played every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening during the summer.' He added regular concerts in the following summer.